Why, most foolish girl, do you laugh? Neither Praxiteles[1] nor Scopas[2] has given me shape, nor have I been perfected by the hand of Phidias;[3] but a bailiff carved me from a shapeless log, and said to me, 'You are Priapus!'[4] Yet you gaze at me, and laugh repeatedly. Doubtless it seems to you a droll thing--the 'column' standing upright from my groin.

[1. Praxiteles, according to Pliny, lived in the time of Pompeius: his statue of Venus was very famous.

2. Scopas was a celebrated sculptor in marble and carved in relief on the Mausoleum.

3. Phidias was a renowned ivory sculptor.

4. The statue was so badly carved that the sculptor had to explain what his work was intended to represent.]